


Then It's the Bomb That Will Bring Us Together

by redbuttonhole



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morrisseylock, Past Sherlock Holmes/Victor Trevor, Sexuality, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:15:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/pseuds/redbuttonhole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock smoke and talk about their sexual histories.  Check the tags for possible triggers, but all the bad stuff is long in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the betas for this story: unreconstructedfangirl, gentlespirit, and lostlogs. If I didn't use all your suggestions, it's mostly because I am lazy and they were hard. They were appreciated nonetheless.

John falls back onto the pillows, his chest heaving. 

" _Jesus_ , Sherlock. Where'd you learn that how to do that?"

Sherlock sits back against the headboard, panting slightly, his knees up, his skin glistening silver with sweat and moonlight. 

"Lie down, will you?" John says, nudging him vaguely. Three years of mounting sexual tension, finally released: John can't remember the last time he felt so relaxed, and he wants nothing more than to wrap himself around Sherlock and sink into sleep. "You've taken all my bones, there's no way I can reach you up there."

"In a minute." Sherlock's voice is tight and tense, and John realizes that the rest of his body is too. He can just make out Sherlock's face through the dark, brows knitted in... concentration? Frustration? Anger? It looks the polar opposite to what John is feeling right now. Not good.

"Sherlock? Something the matter?"

Sherlock doesn't move.

"Is it..." John begins, dreading the answer. "Is it something I—?"

"No," says Sherlock quickly. "Just... sorting some things."

"Oh," says John. "Mind palace?"

"Bit of archeology, really." The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitches, but whether in amusement or disdain, John can't tell. "Just popped open the door to a set of rooms I thought I'd demolished ages ago." 

John's body is starting to feel solid again, so he sits up and tugs the sheet over his lap. "Ages ago," he repeats. "The last time you...?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Not a virgin, then."

Sherlock casts him a sidelong look. "You'd already deduced that much."

"True," says John. "Even a genius couldn't pull off that move without some prior instruction." 

"What about you?"

John grins. "I'm not a virgin either."

"But with men?"

"Ah," John looks down at his hands, though he knows his blush isn't visible in the dark. "In that sense, yes. I suppose it was obvious."

"You're a quick study," says Sherlock. John can hear the hint of a smile in his voice, and he relaxes a little. "So all your protests over the last few years were completely sincere, then?" Sherlock sounds faintly incredulous. "The thought never crossed your mind before tonight."

"I didn't say that." John takes a breath, exhales it slowly. "It's a bit more complicated. Has to do with Harry."

Sherlock gives a sharp nod, as if this confirms what he had already deduced. "She came out to your parents," he says, "and they disowned her. You were afraid of the same thing happening to you." 

John frowns. "That's... well, that's not wrong. But it's not everything. Do you want the whole story?"

"Yes," says Sherlock after a beat. "If you're willing."

"I don't mind," says John. He leans back against the headboard, shifting to get comfortable. "I was a maybe fourteen, so back in the '80s. Mum caught Harry one night in her room with her girlfriend. They were... making a bit of noise." He smiles at the memory. "Dad told her she couldn't do that kind of thing under their roof, and she shouted a bunch and ran off. I think they expected her to cry about it for a weekend and come home. But she didn't. She and her girlfriend moved right into a house they knew – a squat filled with punks and anarchists and queers. Boys, girls, both and neither. Her girlfriend eventually made her way back home, but Harry stayed on." 

John looks up and sees Sherlock's eyes on him, glittering in the dim light like a cat's. He continues. "Harry stayed in touch, and I went to visit her whenever I could. Life was difficult there—no plumbing, no electricity. But they were having the time of their lives, creating their own little society. It was halfway between being grown up and running away to Never Never Land. I couldn't wait to join her."

"But you didn't."

John rolls his neck until it cracks, mentally preparing himself for the next part of the story. 

"There was a bloke there, Charlie," he says. "He'd been around the longest, and everyone sort of looked up to him. Harry most of all. He took her under his wing when she first showed up, taught her how to get by when your family chucked you out. How to create a new family that wouldn't dick you over. Harry adored him, of course. But one day he got sick. Tuberculosis, it turned out. Like a fucking Dickens novel. Who gets tuberculosis these days?" 

"People with AIDS."

John smiles bitterly. "Righto," he says. "When Charlie went to the hospital, he asked Harry to ring his parents. Tell them he wanted to see them one last time, make amends. They told her the world was better off without the likes of him, and hung up on her. That's about when her drinking got bad."

"And you?"

"It was different for me, wasn't it? I liked girls, I always had. If I thought about boys too sometimes... I had good reason to ignore that. I was lucky, I had a choice. Go one way, I could be safe, happy. Lead a nice long life with a wife and kids, parents who loved me. Or go the other, and get thrown out on the street, maybe wind up cursed with this plague. And watch my slow death destroy my sister all over again. I couldn't do it. Maybe it was cowardly, but I couldn't put her through that, even just the thought of it. The worry, the fear. I didn't have to be gay, so I wasn't. After a while, I forgot I'd ever had another option." 

For a few moments, Sherlock is so still and silent that John isn't sure he's awake. Then without warning, he gets out of bed and crosses the room, unabashedly nude. He shoves the window open, letting a blast of frigid air into the room.

"Christ, Sherlock." John grabs for the blankets. "Run away if you have to, but last I checked all the doors were still working."

There is a burst of flame followed by the smell of tobacco. Sherlock exhales out the window. He smokes quickly, efficiently, and when the cigarette is half gone, he says, "I need to smoke."

"Sherlock..."

"If I'm going to tell this story." 

John stares for a few seconds. 

"Close the window," he says at last.

"John—"

"It's freezing out there. Close the window and come back to bed. You can smoke here."

Sherlock's silvery eyes settle on him in surprise. The effect is slightly eerie.

"Just this once," says John.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock settles back in bed, a coffee mug in his lap serving as impromptu ashtray, a fresh cigarette between his lips. 

"I was fifteen when I met Victor Trevor," he declares once it's lit. "He was new to school and the other boys bullied him at first, but I liked him straight away, and Victor never forgot that. Even when he became wildly popular, everyone's favorite, I remained his. We were always together, 'in each others' pockets' as they used to say, which was true in more than one sense. We roomed together the following year." Sherlock taps his ash on the rim of the mug.

"We were like twins – same height, same build, even similar facial structure. Except he was ruddy and blond, and I was pale and dark. We wore each others' clothes, spoke in our own private language. He was well-liked and got on with all the boys, but I wasn't interested in anyone but him. I loved to dance, though, and there wasn't much opportunity at school, so Victor got the idea that we should sneak out at the weekends and go clubbing. He was bold in ways I wasn't, and I liked that. We'd spend the afternoon listening to bootleg tapes of the Smiths and applying each others' eyeliner, then slip out the window and catch the train into town. 

"This was the early '90s, and the good clubs were difficult to get into – long queues, outrageous cover charges, and always the risk of getting turned away at the door for being underage. Victor had a trick, though. If we got off a bit in front of the doorman, he'd let us through.

"It worked very well. Eventually we stopped bothering with queues and covers at all – Victor would simply take my hand, march us up to the door and demand entrance. When the doorman laughed, he'd ask them if they fancied a show and then snog me senseless in front of everyone."

"That must have been a hell of a show," says John.

"It was. We even got a bit famous, so that all we had to do was approach a door and the people queueing up would call out special requests. We discovered that our routine, especially in its extended versions, could earn us free entry, drinks all night, drugs, and more. Victor, it turned out, was particularly interested in the _more_." Sherlock takes a sharp drag and drops the butt into the mug, where it sizzles softly in the dregs of that morning's coffee. "Neither of us had any experience except with each other and a handful of girls, but Victor said we were too young to settle down. He wanted to know what was available. I agreed to whatever he wanted as long as we stuck together. Where he went, I went. What he did, I did."

"Sounds like a bloody porno."

"Should have been. I was very good-looking then."

"Have you seen you now?" 

Sherlock's mouth twitches in a lopsided smile. "I can only imagine what I would have said then to the man I am now. Victor and I were merciless toward anyone over 30. They were ancient and pathetic, and our rule was they weren't allowed to touch us unless they took us shopping first. Again, Victor's idea, but I rather liked those weekends. Getting to investigate some stranger's flat, then a whole day in the posh shops, trying on the most outrageous clothes. And if the men ever balked, we sucked them off in dressing rooms. Or whatever they preferred – Victor had a talent for deducing what people liked, that they'd never admit to." 

"I would have thought that would be your talent."

"No. I had a different, and equally useful skill." Sherlock lights a new cigarette. "It was my job to tell Victor who was seronegative."

John can't help it, he sucks in his breath. For a moment, he can't speak. "Christ, Sherlock," he says at last. "Please tell me you didn't have unprotected sex at the peak of the AIDS crisis with men who 'looked clean'."

"Really, John." John can hear the smirk in Sherlock's voice. "You know my methods. Do you think I based my conclusions on the absence of a hacking cough and visible lesions? After chatting up a man for five minutes, I could tell his relationship status, how promiscuous he was, when he had last visited a clinic, any other STDs he might be carrying, and how consistently he used protection." 

John gapes at that. "Incredible," he breathes.

"Do you doubt it?"

"Knowing you, I suppose not. Is that how you got started with the deductions?"

"Not exactly. Mycroft introduced it to me as a game, as soon as I could talk. But my escapades with Victor are perhaps where I perfected the technique."

"Neat trick, given the circumstances—a lot of men back then would have killed for that power. Must have been strange, though: knowing who was positive before even they did." 

Sherlock blows two thin streams of smoke from his nose. "It didn't exactly make me popular. Everyone saw who I accepted, and who I turned away. How often I was right. Started calling me the Angel of Death, as if it were my fault these men were dying. As if by naming it, I made it happen."

"It was an awful risk, Sherlock, even for you. Weren't you scared of slipping up?"

"Of course. People were dying all around us, every day. Friends of friends, celebrities in the news. A recently retired master, unofficially. A doorman who was always kind to us, a dj, a dealer, an event promoter. No one was safe, but you couldn't let yourself think that way, or you'd forget to live. That's what Victor said. He said we were born to laugh in the face of death." Sherlock exhales another fine plume of smoke, slow and measured. "Anyway, it's not as though we weren't careful. The deductions were an added layer of protection; we did use rubbers as well. Religiously." He lights a new cigarette on the tail end of the other. "Mostly."

"Not so religious, then."

Sherlock waves the cigarette airily. "Even the vicar misses the odd Sunday. Between drugs and drinking and strange hands all over your body, sometimes it was difficult to be perfectly in control of all bodily fluids." 

"Right," says John, gesturing toward Sherlock's lap. "Give me one of those."

"What? A cigarette?"

"I think I just figured out where this story is going, all right?"

"I can stop."

"No. Just... I'm going to need something to steady my nerves."

Sherlock pulls a cigarette from the pack and passes it to John, then lights it for him. John draws deeply and coughs for half a minute. "Sorry," he says when it passes. "Been a while. Carry on." 

"We were being careful," says Sherlock, his voice low and rapid. "Prophylactics every time, plus we got tested together once a month at the free anonymous clinic. We made it into a lark, a date, so we wouldn't get too gloomy. Collecting our negative results was a little excuse to celebrate in the middle of the week – I looked forward to it. 

"One day it didn't work out like that." Sherlock is quiet a moment, and John watches the ember of his cigarette glow brighter as he takes a deep drag. "I can still see Victor's face as he stared at the cordless phone in his hand and said, 'There's been some kind of mistake.'" There's another pause, in which John can hear Sherlock swallow. "For an afternoon, we convinced each other that's what it was – a mix up at the clinic, or he'd gotten the wrong ID number somehow. It had to be. Because we were careful. Because I was never wrong. Because we always did everything together, and I was clean.

"But we both knew it wasn't completely true. We weren't always careful. I was sometimes wrong. And I had already begun to suspect that sometimes Victor had adventures without me. 

"I'll never know which it was. Whether he did something I didn't, or whether I'd deduced incorrectly about someone and simply got lucky. But I understood right away that it could have been me. I hated myself for thinking about that more than I thought about him." 

John stubs out his cigarette only half smoked. "What happened?" he says. "Plenty of people who got infected in the '90s are still alive today."

"Indeed. If he had waited a couple of years, the landscape of the AIDS crisis would have looked very different. It became a different sort of problem—a manageable one, not a fatal one. But neither of us saw that coming.

"And Victor didn't want to out himself to his family. A few years later the world had changed so much that I don't know he would have hesitated. Having a gay child went from an unspeakable shame to rather fashionable in the blink of an eye. But at the time, he couldn't bear the thought of everyone knowing what we had been up to."

Sherlock taps a long cylinder of ash into the mug. "He hanged himself in our dorm room while I was out in the chemistry lab," he says without expression. 

John desperately wants to put his arms around Sherlock, hold him to his chest and run a calming hand through his hair. But that's not what they are to each other yet, so he gestures for another cigarette instead. Sherlock passes him one and lights it. 

"The official story was that he couldn't take the stress of preparing for our upcoming exams. How anyone ever believed that, I'll never understand – Victor was brilliant, always got top marks while barely cracking a book. But everyone did seem to believe it—even his school chums, who should have known better. No one wanted to face what had really happened.

"His parents came to pack up his things from our room, and they told all his friends to help themselves to what was left. Mementos. I, of course, was included in this kind offer. Victor's _friend_." There is a touch of bitterness in Sherlock's voice. "I had to sit there and watch them picking over his posters and tapes and even his shoes. Some had barely known him – just wanted a cheap holiday in someone else's misery." 

"Did you save anything?"

"No. I didn't want to be like the rest of them: scavengers circling a carcass. I was just starting to experiment with mind palaces back then. I built Victor a suite. Then I set fire to it. The only souvenir I kept was the idea that I should never have sexual intercourse with anyone, ever again. That was easy enough, and gave me back some modicum of control. Eventually I stopped thinking about why I'd made the decision in the first place."

"Sherlock," says John, dropping his butt into the mug, "just so you know, I've been tested recently. In case you were—"

Sherlock waves his hand. "It's not that. As you say, it's different now, anyway." He stubs out the last of his own cigarette. 

"We were supposed to spend our lives together," he says quietly. "Victor was restless, but I knew he'd get his fill of that existence eventually, and then it could be just the two of us again. In each others' pockets." 

The air is thick and heavy with smoke. John's eyes prickle from it.

Sherlock taps open the pack to reveal one cigarette left. He lights it and they share it in silence, their fingers brushing as they pass it back and forth.


	3. Playlist

No new story, but I thought I'd add a playlist of the Smiths/Morrissey songs Sherlock and Victor might have listened to while getting ready to go clubbing. I imagine they would utterly devastate Sherlock if he heard them today. 

(Song titles link to youtube so you can hear the original glory.)

[Tomorrow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDdQcfz6pbo)  
[Ask](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoo9Vu1a9bU)  
_(This gives the story its title.)_  
[Stretch Out and Wait](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd4f7vuZfdk)  
_(A song about experimenting with your best mate in his bedroom. His hands are cold.)_  
[Reel Around the Fountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxLFav1Z9EY)  
[There Is a Light that Never Goes Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cD4oLk_D0)  
_(People usually associate this song with Johnlock because of the line about being hit by a double-decker bus, which almost happens in TRF. But this song is SO MUCH about being a teenager and sick of your parents' bullshit, and the only thing that makes it all okay is driving around in your boyfriend's car.)_  
[Unloveable](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xldmXca0kvg)  
[Death of a Disco Dancer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvbCu49lH2Q)  
_Ugh. Don't think I need to explain this one._  
[What Difference Does It Make?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0TZZZcC9l4)  
[Asleep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy0NySCmuFU)  
[Still Ill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0B17ZuyD-w)  
[Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SckD99B51IA)  
[Rubber Ring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpf6gJU3520)  
_(This song is actually about the pop songs you once loved and have now forgotten, which is tragic enough, but it doubles as yet another elegy for your first boyfriend who died when you were a teenager and is now judging you from beyond the grave.)_  
[Back to the Old House](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFzKNmeeSw)

Let me know if you listen!

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking with a friend who is just between John and Sherlock's age, and mentioned that back in the '90s, he used to think about AIDS every day. I realized that given their ages, this made sense as an explanation for both characters' sexual behavior. 
> 
> I've pulled some details from the lives of friends and acquaintances.
> 
> The title is of course from a Smith's song.


End file.
